


"Weary World Rejoicing"

by farad



Series: Christmas Carols [4]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 24, afternoon through night</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Weary World Rejoicing"

**Author's Note:**

> Set the Christmas after "Obsession"; thanks to Huntersglenn for the beta. Thanks also to Zeke Black and her awesome Magnificent Seven Handbook, with transcripts, pictures of the clothes the boys wore, and every thing else, and the people at Daybook for their quick answers to my specific detail needs! All mistakes my very own.

_**"O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,** _

_**It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.** _

_**Long lay the world in sin and error pining.** _

_**Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.** _

_**A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,** _

_**For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.** _

_**Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!** _

_**O night divine, the night when Christ was born;** _

_**O night, O holy night, O night divine!** _

_**O night, O holy night, O night divine!"** _

 

\--from "O Holy Night", verse one,

by Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure in 1847.

 

The first drops of rain were small but cold. It wasn't a surprise; the clouds had been gathering through yesterday and today.

 

Josiah stood on the church steps, looking out into the town. Music drifted from Inez's saloon, where someone was actually playing the piano. Christmas songs, to which the crowd was singing. Not unpleasantly, either. He could hear Buck's voice clearly over the chorus of the others.

 

Josiah smiled. Buck truly embraced the season. JD and Ezra had too, and with almost as much enthusiasm, which was good to see after this past year.

 

As if called by the thought, a drop of rain hit him on the nose, quickly making its way down to drop on to his shirt front. He thought he'd felt ice in it, but then, that, too, could have been the chill from the memory of the year.

 

He wondered how Chris was; he'd watched him ride out of town yesterday, surprised not that he was leaving but that it had taken him this long.

 

"Rain on Christmas Eve," a voice said nearby, and Josiah turned to find Mr. Conklin coming down the road, his coat pulled tight around him. "Surely God must be punishing us."

 

Josiah tried hard not to hate the man, but some days were harder than others. This was going to be a harder one. "Can't rightly think of why he might," he said, measuring his words. "Unless you have something on your mind?"

 

Conklin glowered up at Josiah, his glasses splattered with rain. "All the things that have happened in this past year, since you lot came back - "

 

"What things have happened?" Josiah asked. "Seems to me it's been pretty calm for most of the year – summer saw some problems with the Juarez gang, but it didn't take but a few of us to handle that and none of it was in town." Because it couldn't be; Chris was still healing and Vin, Buck, Ezra, and Josiah had made sure that there was no trouble in town. It had taken all of Ezra's deviousness to pull those capers, but they'd done it.

 

"Then in the fall we had that problem with the rustlers, but Vin tracked them down right quick – and we managed to keep things calm until the Judge got here for the trial." Chris had been on his feet by then, but he was off chasing after leads that Vin and Buck had already chased, leaving them to do things on their own. And they had. And done them well.

 

Conklin stiffened. "That was just a miracle," he said. "This town was so wound up that any little thing could have set off a riot."

 

"Any little thing?" Josiah asked. "Like someone stirring things up by spreading rumors and egging on the fear instead of helping out?" He grinned as Conklin's mouth fell open, then he sputtered a few times as he tried to find words. No one in town had been particularly worried, at least no more so than usual. Except for Conklin, who flit around from place to place, spreading his own brand of worry, up to the point that Gloria Potter told him to put a sock in it. Loudly and on the boardwalk, where everyone in town could hear it. "I think this town has done right well this year, and I think this rain is a sign from the good Lord that He's pleased. It'll be cold and wet tonight, but tomorrow morning, we'll be looking out on a new world."

 

Conklin raised a hand and stammered, "I hope you're right, Sanchez. The best reward He could give us, though, would be to have no need of any gunfighters."

 

Josiah nodded. "Amen to that."

 

Conklin scurried away then, shaking his head in irritation and probably some confusion. He still couldn't understand why Josiah agreed with him - because Josiah did agree with him. There was nothing that would be finer than to live in a place where there was no need for violence. But as far as Josiah could tell, that place wasn't on this earth, not here in the desert, not back in the 'civilized east'.

 

He looked up at the sky again, watching as the rain came down faster now and harder. He could hear it hitting the roof, recognized the tinkle of ice. Vin was out there somewhere in this, and for a few seconds, he worried. But only a few. If this year had taught him anything, it was that Vin Tanner was perfectly capable of handling anything the world threw at him. A little ice was the least of his worries.

 

Josiah turned back into the church, closing the door to hold in the heat. He took a while to stand and stare, to appreciate the beauty of it. No matter how far he fell from grace, no matter how much he disliked the state of religion itself, he always came back at Christmas.

 

He had spent the past week cleaning, oiling down the pews, polishing the wood to a shine. It gleamed now in the light of the candles – almost a hundred of them, spread throughout the church. White ones, mostly, they'd been the least expensive, and it was Christmas, but he'd splurged and ordered in some red ones and even some green ones. It wasn't tradition, far from it, but if there was one thing he was learning, faith and tradition were two different things. Inez had donated some poinsettias, like the ones she had in the saloon, and Mary and Gloria and many of the ladies of the town had made new altar cloths and draperies.

 

But the real centerpiece was the creche itself. Tiny had made it, a wooden trough that he had built and sanded then stuffed with hay. Inside it was a doll sewn by Nettie and Casey, and around it were all sorts of animals, some sewn and stuffed, others made of bits of wood hammered together. This year, the town had provided. Not collectively; men like Conklin still created enough division that it was hard for there to be unity.

 

Individually, though, men and women and children, especially the children, had come to him with their offerings.

 

Steps sounded on the stairs outside, hard and fast. His first thought was that there was an emergency, that something had happened at the saloon, or worse, to Chris or Vin or someone not in town.

 

But before the hand turned the church door's knob, he knew it was JD. And if it was JD, and there was no shouting, then it was not an emergency. Josiah took a step forward just before JD pushed the door open and stepped into the church, water spraying as he shook himself off.

 

"Josi – would you look at this!"

 

Josiah smiled, still looking at the beauty of it himself. "We do good work," he said.

 

JD took several more steps in, pushing the door closed behind him. He held his hat in one hand, pressed against his chest, and Josiah warmed all the more to the boy, even as water puddled on the floor around him. The young man. Of all of them, this year had seen JD grow the most, confronted by some hard realities. Some hard disappointments. By his own battle with Death: Annie's and then almost his own. All of that before the tragedy with Chris.

 

"Where did all of this come from?" JD asked, moving slowly up the aisle, his head moving left and right and up and down as he took it all in.

 

"Everyone," Josiah said, drawing in a deep breath.

 

"It's like a real church!" JD said, stopping to genuflect though it was distracted, his eyes still wandering about the room.

 

"That, it is," Josiah agreed, amused but not offended.

 

"So – you're going to have the pageant here? In the main part of the church?" He turned to look back at Josiah.

 

"Where else?" Josiah asked. "If we've had people working so hard to make it look this good, then don't they deserve the Lord's best stage?"

 

JD looked for a second like he might argue, but instead, he smiled. "Sounds about right," he said with a nod. He turned back to look at the altar, the candles bright as day. The drum of rain on the roof was distant and slowing, and Josiah smiled all the more. It would rain more through the night, he had no doubt of that, but for now, it would leave off, long enough for the pageant. And maybe later, for the Midnight Mass.

 

JD walked over to the candles, dropped a few coins in the collection box then lit one. He bent over it for a few seconds, his whispered prayer too low to be heard, but Josiah knew who it was for. The same person it was for every time JD came into the church.

 

When he finished, he looked back to Josiah and said, "You think – you think Chris and Vin . . ." JD let the words trail off, not finishing the question. There was no need.

 

"The season means different things to different people," Josiah said, thinking of the times he and Vin had talked about Christmas, about Vin's confusion about what the season was really about. "Some people think the best way to commemorate the day is in reflection and solitude."

 

"Or getting drunk and shooting at trees?" JD asked with an edge of bitterness.

 

But just an edge. No longer the flat head of a mallet, as it had been in the summer.

 

Before Josiah could answer, JD went on. "Just seems like this year we could stand to be together about – well, something. But we can't even agree about this."

 

"You don't think we're together about some things?" Josiah said, walking slowly up the aisle. "I think we're together on the things that are important: protecting this town, respecting each other, even caring about each other. We each have different ways of doing it, but it all comes back to the same thing."

 

JD turned to look at him, his face showing the question.

 

"It's been a hard year, hard for you , what with getting shot. But hard for Chris, too. He almost died, which is bad enough as you know, but he also found out that he was the reason his wife and son were murdered. And he was the reason that the six of us were almost killed, too. You don't think that takes something out of a man, to carry that guilt, that responsibility?" He stopped beside JD and stared up at the crucifix. "This time of year, we honor the birth of a man who's going to do exactly that. A man who knew from the time that he was born that he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Would you begrudge him some peace and quiet if he wanted it?"

 

JD shook his head, but Josiah saw the beginnings of a smile on his face. "I think Chris would be pretty angry if he heard you comparing him to Jesus."

 

Josiah grinned back. "Yeah, reckon we'd best not tell him."

 

There were more footsteps on the stairs and the sound of several voices talking just before the door to the church opened again and Nettie, Casey, Mary, and Billy trooped in. JD trotted down the aisle to help them, giving Josiah a few seconds alone, collecting his own thoughts, before the Christmas Eve programs started.

 

It was a few minutes he didn't find again until after the Midnight Mass was over, the last of the congregation bundled up and headed into the freezing night. He stood once more at the door, watching as Inez made her way carefully along the dirt road toward the boardwalk where Buck waited to give her a hand up. He hadn't come to the Mass – many of the townsfolk hadn't. It was a more traditional Catholic service. Tomorrow morning, just after dawn, Josiah would hold another service, this one geared more for the Protestants.

 

Buck waved to Josiah as he drew Inez up to the safety of the covered walk and Josiah waved back. But he took a moment to study the town, dark and peaceful, just a few watchfires burning weakly in the momentary respite from the icy rain.

 

He turned back into the church, closing the door tightly behind him, then he took another few minutes to look. It wasn't as pretty now as it had been, many of the candles burned out, the floor scuffed and muddy, the wooden furniture smudged where people had touched it, gripped it, and leaned against it. The altar cloths were askew in places, wrinkled in others, and the creche was no longer bore any resemblance to what it had looked like before the pageant.

 

It was a well-used church.

 

He had left the polishing rag and polish in the cupboard, and there was a broom and mop outside the back door . . .

 

The rain had started again, drumming on the roof. Under its mild thunder, he heard his father's voice, the familiar words of Leviticus 15:31 repeated so often in his youth: "Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them."

 

But as he started up the aisle, another voice spoke within the rhythm of the rain, a voice he hadn't heard in many years: "Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also."

 

He paused, staring at the creche, at the animals now crowded around the manger, many of them with their heads bowed over and against the figure of the child inside.

 

She had always preferred the New Testament, the story of love. Where his father preferred the wrath of Yahweh, his mother countered with the love of the Son. When his father, like Conklin, would find the bad in every situation, his mother would find the good.

 

In that moment in March, when he had cradled Chris' still body in his arms, his friend's blood warm and slick against Josiah's skin, he had thought then that the worst was happening. And for a time after, as Chris struggled to live, as everyone of them struggled to make sense of it, struggled to come to terms with it, he had thought that it was the end.

 

But love was winning out. Chris had lived, and while he was still in the blackness of grief all over again, grief and guilt, he was working his way through it. JD, Buck, even Ezra, saw Chris' retreat to his shack as a bad thing. But Josiah saw it as something else: a step forward. Because no one had felt the need to stop him, not this time. Josiah knew they would all check on him, each in his way. But none of them had argued with him about his leaving, not even Nathan.

 

Josiah smiled, staring at the creche. Then he moved about slowly, blowing out the candles, until all that remained were the ones in commemoration, the ones he wouldn't blow out. A number of them were for his own family: his parents, his grandparents, and one for Hannah. He stood before them, praying for their peace and for their souls, for mercy and forgiveness.

 

Then he took the long stick and lit six more, giving thanks and praying for safety for the men he had come to call brothers. One day soon, he'd take a ride out of town and check up on the wayward ones.

 

 


End file.
